So firstly – thank you to everyone at the Trust who has made me feel so welcome in my first three weeks. One of my first goals as your new Chief Nurse is to share with you a little bit about me and what I stand for but also my hopes for us a team as we face one of the most challenging  periods in the history of the NHS.

I have been and will be out and about as much as I possibly can over the next few weeks and have so far managed to meet with various staff groups at each hospital site and at St John’s Health Centre. I plan to arrange open forums and am also hosting the CRH Big Brief in the Learning Centre next Thursday 7 July at 1.30pm - so I hope you'll join me if you can. 

We work in an ever-changing health service with rising demand, increasing expectations and not enough money to go around, and I’ve been incredibly impressed by our teams response to these challenges.

As we set about facing and embracing these challenges together within both our hospitals and local health system, there are four things which are important to me:

• Patient experience is the priority – quality of care has to be the organising principle. Delivering the best possible patient care is why we’re here – that’s what gets me into work every day
• All our people matter – every one of us has a unique and essential part to play and we need to allow everyone at CHFT to make their contribution to the full.
• Partnerships – no organisation can meet challenges alone – the future of CHFT and indeed the NHS is about cooperation and working together as a system.
• Credibility and sustainability – people have asked me "Does the financial situation worry me?" It absolutely does – but being strong financially is not an end in itself, it’s a means by which we achieve independence to make our own choices about how to improve the care for our population and it’s community.

My first impressions of CHFT are that we are already well on the way to meeting our challenges, and I’ve been incredibly impressed by the progress being made here. I’ve shared my view with several of you so far, and confirmed I feel there is unlimited potential within our Trust, evidenced through our staff’s ambition to develop services and their quest for innovation, quality and experience – it all seems to me that there’s a great foundation to build upon. 

Finally I’m very proud to be joining your team, and can confirm I will serve you to the best of my ability.